U.S.|Immigration Advocate, Detained on Texas Border, Is Released in Visa Case

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Immigration Advocate, Detained on Texas Border, Is Released in Visa Case

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Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and an activist for immigrants, like him, who do not have legal status, was detained at McAllen-Miller International Airport on Tuesday.Published OnJuly 15, 2014CreditCreditBrent McDonald/The New York Times

McALLEN, Tex. — Jose Antonio Vargas, who has chronicled in minute detail the twists and turns of his life as a Filipino living illegally for years in the United States, was detained by the Border Patrol for most of the day on Tuesday and then released with a notice to appear before an immigration judge.

The detention of Mr. Vargas, probably the most high-profile leader of the immigrant rights movement, posed an awkward dilemma for the Obama administration. The surge of Central Americans, including many children, crossing the border illegally — saying they are fleeing criminal violence at home — has made all decisions about immigration politically fraught, and administration officials were keenly aware that the backdrop to their decision to release Mr. Vargas was a border where thousands of migrants are being held.

Mr. Vargas was detained at a Border Patrol checkpoint in the airport of this city in the Rio Grande Valley before he was to board a flight to Houston, on his way to Los Angeles. In a terse statement, Department of Homeland Security officials said they had released Mr. Vargas because he had no prior immigration or criminal record. They said their focus was on deporting immigrants who posed security threats.

It was the first time Mr. Vargas, who has been living without papers in the United States since 1993, had been arrested by immigration authorities. Lawyers assisting him said that they would seek to have the action against him suspended, and that it was unlikely he would be deported.

Mr. Vargas insisted that he never intended to be detained when he came to South Texas. But he and his supporters wasted no time turning his arrest into a day of high drama, using it to publicize their cause on social media and at a news conference in front of the Border Patrol station where he was held.

“I was released today because I am a low priority and not considered a threat,” Mr. Vargas said by telephone shortly after his release. “I would argue that the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country are not a threat either.”

President Obama, seeking to stem the influx across the Rio Grande, has moved to deport recent crossers more quickly. He is also considering executive actions to expand protections from deportation for immigrants, like Mr. Vargas, who have lived here for years and pose no security threat. Republicans argue that Mr. Obama’s leniency with those immigrants has encouraged the border surge.

Mr. Vargas has been traveling around the country with a Philippine passport that is valid but has no United States visa. Because of this valley’s proximity to the Mexican border, airports and roads leading out have Border Patrol checkpoints at which officers confirm travelers’ immigration status.

Mr. Vargas’s arrest revealed the patchwork quilt of immigration enforcement that has allowed him to travel freely to 43 states in the last three years, since domestic airport security officials did not check his immigration status. But once he came to this heavily patrolled border region, he had to pass through a checkpoint to leave.

As he approached the airport checkpoint on Tuesday morning, he built suspense, sending out two posts on Twitter. “About to go thru security at McAllen Airport. I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he wrote, including a link to his advocacy organization. And then: “The only IDs I have for security: Philippine passport and my pocketbook US Constitution,” with a photo of both documents.

The police in Minnesota had held Mr. Vargas in 2012 on a traffic violation, but immigration officials declined to detain him then.

Mr. Vargas’s mother sent him to the United States when he was 12. Now 33, he was too old by a few months to qualify for a deportation deferral under a program Mr. Obama started in 2012 for young immigrants in the country illegally. Immigrants with deferrals can travel legally within the United States.

Mr. Vargas has been the main narrator of his story: in a first-person article in The New York Times Magazine in 2011 in which he declared his illegal status; in a cover story for Time magazine; and, most recently, in a documentary film, “Documented,” for which he was both producer and star. He started a media campaign, Define American, to cast light on the lives of immigrants in the country illegally. The group organized watch parties for a national broadcast of his film on CNN last month.

He came to McAllen last week for a news conference and vigil organized by United We Dream, a group for immigrant youth, outside a shelter for recently released Central Americans.

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Jose Antonio Vargas in June.CreditKevork Djansezian/Reuters

In an interview before his arrest, he said he had flown frequently in recent months to showings of the film around the country.

“I didn’t even think twice about it,” Mr. Vargas said of accepting the invitation to come here. When immigrant advocates familiar with security in the Rio Grande Valley asked him how he was planning to leave, Mr. Vargas said he responded, “No, this can’t be for real.”

Cristina Jimenez, a leader of the group that extended the invitation, said that Mr. Vargas’s arrest “was never the intention or part of a broader plan. When the truth sunk in, we looked at each other’s eyes in disbelief.”

But Mr. Vargas and his followers moved to take maximum advantage of the news exposure. Advocacy networks were buzzing all day with text messages summoning people to call the Border Patrol station and demand his release.

As a journalist for The Washington Post, Mr. Vargas shared in a Pulitzer Prize in 2008. In February 2013, he testified before a Senate panel, sitting not far from a federal deportation officer.

Homeland Security officials said the Border Patrol agents at the airport had arrested Mr. Vargas “after he stated he was in the country illegally.”

After his release, Mr. Vargas said, “I came down to this border, and I realized that it is a militarized zone.” Anticipating criticism that he had received special treatment because of his high profile, he said he was no different from most immigrants without papers.

“President Obama should go big and bold with executive action to give us relief,” he said.

Correction:

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article incorrectly identified where Jose Antonio Vargas wrote of his realization that he would have to pass through a U.S. Customs and Border Protection checkpoint to leave the Rio Grande Valley. It was in his article for Politico Magazine, not on Twitter.

Correction:

A picture caption with an earlier version of this article gave an incorrect date for the photo. It was taken on July 10, not July 11.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A13 of the New York edition with the headline: Immigration Advocate, Detained on Texas Border, Is Released in Visa Case. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe